Editing Mothering Sunday (section)

== Mediaeval origin ==
<!-- British English requires the "ae" in "mediaeval" -->Mothering Sunday coincides with [[Laetare Sunday]], also called Mid-Lent Sunday or [[Refreshment Sunday]], a day of respite from [[Fasting#Christianity|fasting]] halfway through the penitential season of [[Lent]]. Its association with mothering originates in the texts read during the [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]] in the [[Middle Ages]], appearing in the [[lectionary]] in sources as old as the [[Murbach lectionary]] from the [[8th century]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wilmart |first1=A. |title=Le ''Comes'' de Murbach |journal=Revue Bénédictine |date=1913 |volume=30 |issue=1–4 |pages=25–69 |doi=10.1484/J.RB.4.01763}}</ref> These include several references to mothers and metaphors for mothers.

The [[introit]] for the day is from [[Isaiah 66]]:10–11 and [[Psalm 122]]:1, using imagery of the [[New Jerusalem]]:

<blockquote>Rejoice ye with Jerusalem; and be ye glad for her, all ye that delight in her: exult and sing for joy with her, all ye that in sadness mourn for her; that ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations. ''Psalm'': [[I was glad]] when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Burgess |first1=Francis |title=The English Gradual, part 2 |date=1921 |publisher=Plainchant Publications Committee |location=London}}</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>Laetare Hierusalem et conventum facite omnes qui diligitis eam: gaudete cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis, ut exsultetis et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae. ''Psalmus'': Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi: in domum Domini ibimus.</blockquote>

Commentators of the period associate this with the personification of the Church as the [[Bride of Christ]] or with the Virgin Mary.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Higdon |first1=David Leon |title=The Wife of Bath and Refreshment Sunday |journal=Papers on Language and Literature |date=1972 |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=199–201 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/950908498b6f12eb4101e772a0c0e480/}}</ref>

The [[Epistle]] reading for the day is [[Galatians 4]]:21–31, [[Paul the Apostle]]'s analysis of the story of [[Hagar]] and [[Sarah]], speaking of 'Jerusalem … which is the mother of us all.' While acknowledging the significance of motherhood, Paul understands the story as an [[allegory]], advocating for an understanding of motherhood that transcends the material world and [[fertility]] through quoting [[Isaiah 54:1]]:<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ferguson |first1=John |title=The Christian Year: Fourth Sunday in Lent, Mothering Sunday |journal=The Expository Times |date=March 1982 |volume=93 |issue=6 |pages=174–176 |doi=10.1177/001452468209300607|s2cid=170189479 }}</ref>

<blockquote>
Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children,
    burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs;
for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous
    than the children of the one who is married.
</blockquote>

The [[Gospel]] for the day is [[John 6]]:1–14, the story of the [[Feeding of the Five Thousand]], which prompted the association between Mothering Sunday and the 'Gifts of Mother Earth'.<ref name="Smith1921"/>

Inspired by the 'We will go into the house of the Lord' [[psalm]], mediaeval people began to make processions to their local 'mother church' on the day, typically the local [[cathedral]]. These could sometimes become unruly, as recorded by [[Robert Grosseteste]] (Letter 22.7):<ref>{{cite book |title=The letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln |date=2010 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |location=Toronto |isbn=978-0-8020-9813-9 |page=107}}</ref>

<blockquote>In each and every church you should strictly prohibit one parish from fighting with another over whose banners should come first in processions at the time of the annual visitation and veneration of the mother church. […] Those who dishonour their spiritual mother should not at all escape punishment, when those who dishonour their fleshly mothers are, in accordance with God's law, cursed and punished with death.</blockquote>